Falling Flat.

“You can’t call my husband. He’s dead.”

Spitting blood, seeing stars and hearing bells is not how I saw this evening playing out. But for the last two weeks I have been on an emotional roller coaster that just won’t let up—and karma hasn’t exactly been kind to me—so this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

And this is me, sitting on the sidewalk.

In lycra that could only be tighter if it was painted on. Ejected from my bike pedals after my face connected with the pavement. Taking mental inventory of the fact that the man who just instigated this little mishap has informed me that I need stitches for “aesthetic” reasons. Listening to my daughter scream. And my son asking for the firetruck to come and save me.

“Do you want me to call the paramedics?”

Nooooooooooooooo.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy a truck full of firemen as much as the next woman—what is it about those pants?—but going back to that whole karma thing, with my luck I would know whoever arrives on that truck. Probably very well. And I really don’t want my snotty, bloody face to be analyzed that closely by attractive men arriving with sirens and lights alerting the entire neighborhood to the fact that I just fell off my bike and got an owie. Granted, I am fairly certain this is a big one. But no matter how impressive the damage is, it will not erase the fact that I fell off my bike.

“We really should call them. You hit the pavement pretty hard and you need to be stitched up.”

“Mommy, are you going to be okay? You’re BLEEDING!!!!”

Somehow, I managed to get through my entire life to this point without needing stitches or breaking any bones. While I am not the most breathtaking woman on the planet, I am not altogether unattractive and now that the stars have faded I am realizing I can’t feel my lips. Which means they are likely the target of those stitches this irritating man keeps mentioning. Which has me both bleeding and seething. Because I happened to be perfectly happy with how they looked before my face met the concrete. And because I am eternally hopeful that someone, someday, might want to kiss them.

Someday is clearly not today.

A day when my daughter alerted an entire waiting room of people that if they wanted to, they could take a peek at a pink thong through see-through pants. A day when my head hurt long before it cracked open on the concrete, spinning in confusion and regret for its deviation from caution. A day when my year of re-setting and re-charging officially ended. A day when I just know I am going to see those crystal blue eyes laughing at me again.

After he looks at my snotty, bloody lips.

Firetrucks on Fridays.

I can’t reach the volume on my ipod. Actually, I can. But any movement other than directly forward might send me careening directly in front of the noise I am trying to drown out. And I can’t start singing at the top of my lungs to drown it out because I live in a small community where word travels fast. Which explains why I’ve never acted on the tempting-yet-completely-inadvisable mental cleanse that could be achieved by running down the street screaming and naked.  

(Note: I know what you are thinking. I’ve mentioned that whole naked and screaming thing before. I admit there might have been several occasions when my stress level reached a point where it seemed like a good idea. But I am doing much better now. Thank you for checking.)

It’s Friday. Friday morning. Friday morning at 8:30-ish. Sirens are racing up behind and in front of me. My lungs are seizing up, my intestines rioting, and I have just chewed a hole in my cheek that promises to fester into the size of a silver dollar by the start of next week.

On a positive note, if I do go down it won’t take paramedics long to arrive.

Friday morning is different from any other morning. It’s not free as Saturday and Sunday, it’s lazily energetic while Monday is focused, and it’s more enthusiastic than Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. It’s the end of the week and the start of the weekend. It’s when sandals replace stilettos and vegetables are pushed aside for pizza.

It’s when sirens in the distance went silent in front of our house.

My subconscious marked that moment in time, measuring the days, the weeks and the months from that point on. In the car I would suddenly glance at the clock. I would find myself standing in front of the microwave’s digital clock, unable to escape the crystal blue eyes that told me everything had changed. Sitting at my computer my eyes would drift to the bottom right, an unexpected acknowledgement of passing time. As the days, weeks and months passed my hatred for Friday morning eased into lingering dread and then quiet ambivalence. At some point that I did not notice the notches in time were no longer counted and the dread and panic faded along with my body’s physical repulsion at the sound of sirens. Friday morning was once again … Friday morning.

Every now and then, Friday feels the way it did that morning, moments that are unsettling as much for the unexpectedness as for the memory. But most of the time it is simply lunches and backpacks, school and summer camp, cereal and unmade beds.

And then there’s today when the sound of sirens isn’t just about riding through memories – it’s about avoiding new ones. Because no matter how appealing a truck full of firemen might be, it’s better when the view isn’t from a stretcher. And with my luck, I’d be looking up at the same set of blue eyes.

Except this time around, they’d be laughing.

Spinning Forward.

… dark fruit aromas and flavors of black cherry and ripe plum with light oak influence for a smooth, luxurious texture.   

– 2008 Red Bicyclette® Pinot Noir 

I have two very nice bicycles in the garage. That aren’t going anywhere. My rump, however, has a different plan and before it takes a permanent detour from tight and trim to loose and lumpy I need to take control. And there is nothing like committing to an exhausting outdoor activity in the dead of summer … in Phoenix.

I blame this on my husband. Lance Armstrong. The mid-summer bikini check.

It’s always July when I make a dedicated effort to commit to my bicycle. It’s not that I don’t think about doing this at any other time of the year. It’s just that unless it is priority one on the daily checklist there is not enough of me for a time commitment like that. And when I do, it’s clear that there is no love lost between my bottom half and a bicycle seat.

My husband was the cyclist. I was the runner. Looking back, I should have campaigned for role reversal. My husband's legs looked like they were carved from marble. Mine are the “work-too-hard-have-two-kids-and-this-is-the-best-I-can-do” kind of legs.

He always hoped I would grow to love two wheels as much as he did. For the birth of our son he gave me a powder blue mountain bike. A road bike for our daughter. But after long work weeks, two toddlers and his hours of spinning there simply wasn’t any time left. So the bikes became expensive racks, I stayed a runner and the most time I spent with two wheels was popping the cork on a bottle of Red Bicyclette.

But there is something about July. It isn’t just the images of sinewy legs climbing mountain passes and speeding through pastoral scenes that invade our psyche for the entire month. Cycling represents so much of the life we built together. In it he found a circle of dedicated friends whose common ground was an unquenchable zest for life and adventure. When running pregnant in the summer heat was too much, he set his bike in the house and I spun as we watched the hunt for the yellow jersey unfold.   

July is here again and I am committing – to a bottle of red and a tube of chamois butter.

Blown Tires.

You aren’t paying attention. What are you going to do when you get a flat?

Call you, of course. Except that I can’t call you, which is why I am in bike maintenance for dummies class. In cream cargo capris and a white T. Not smart, considering that the next 60 minutes will cover lubing, degreasing, repairing and inflating. 

I am here because I am now the sole owner of a garage filled with bikes and bike parts, tubes and tires, canisters filled with suspicious looking lubricants, pieces of chain, racks and pumps. We have road bikes, mountain bikes, trainer bikes, BMX bikes and tagalongs. And an unusually high number of zip ties.

I once went looking for a Phillips head and inner tubes erupted like trapped snakes from a drawer. Tucked at the top of a hallway cupboard I discovered every worn, broken and sweat-soaked helmet my husband had ever owned. He had 37 cycling jerseys hanging in the closet, outnumbered only by race and cycling t-shirts. Two drawers filled with sleeve and leg warmers, chamois shorts and bibs, skull caps and gloves, rain gear and socks. I found race medals in drawers throughout the house and his Camelbak insert in the freezer. An orderly stack of number plates in a garage cupboard. Bag balm in the medicine cabinet.

Suggesting he pick up a hobby seemed like a good idea at the time.

In less than five minutes, the instructor has deflated, re-inflated and checked for leaks and holes the tires on two entirely different bikes, tossing out references to tire wrenches, purple something and white lightning, lining the rims, pinch flats and dollar bills. Maybe I could just get the number for the American Bicycling Association’s roadside service?

No, because he loved his bicycles and so does his son. And I’ve seen the same glint in my daughter’s eyes now that she is riding on two wheels. It’s why I spend Monday nights at a dusty track, why I laugh when my son tells me that he prefers to ride in the dirt because “it feels good,” and why I avoided teaching my daughter how to ride only because I should have been watching him do it.

It’s why I’ll be sitting in my living room with a dirty tire long after my kids are in bed trying to figure out what the instructor just did.